after four times hurling back the serried ranks that dashed against them, had fallen back, outflanked and terribly cut up.  On the left was a farm-house, situated on an elevated ridge a little back from the road.  Within, while the fiercest battle raged, was its solitary inmate, an aged and bed-ridden lady, whose paralyzed and helpless form was stretched upon the bed where for fourscore years she had slept the calm sleep of a Christian.  She had sent her attendants from the dwelling to seek a place of safety, but would not herself consent to be removed, for she heard the whisper of the angel of death, and chose to meet, him there in the house of her childhood.  For the possession of the hill on which the building stood, the opposing hosts were hotly struggling.  The fury of the battle seemed to concentre there, and through the time-worn walls the shot was plunging, splintering the planks and beams, and shivering the stone foundation.  Sherman’s battery came thundering up the hill upon its last desperate advance.  Just as the foaming horses were wheeled upon its summit, the van of Hampton’s legion sprang up the opposite side, and the crack of a hundred rifles simultaneously sounded.  Down fell the cannoneers beside their guns before those deadly missiles, and the plunging horses were slaughtered in the traces, or, wounded to the death, lashed out their iron hoofs among the maimed and writhing soldiers and into the heaps of dead.  The battery was captured, but held only fop an instant, when two companies of Rhode Islanders, led on by Harold Hare, charged madly up the hill.

“Save the guns, boys!” he cried, as the gallant fellows bent their heads low, and sprang up the ascent right in the face of the blazing rifles.

“Fire low! stand firm! drive them back once again, my brave Virginians!” shouted a young Southern officer, springing to the foremost rank.

The mutual fire was delivered almost at the rifles’ muzzles, and the long sword-bayonets clashed together.  Without yielding ground, for a few terrible seconds they thrust and parried with the clanging steel, while on either side the dead were stiffening beneath their feet, and the wounded, with shrieks of agony, were clutching at their limbs.  Harold and the young Southron met; their swords clashed together once in the smoke and dust, and but once, when each drew back and lowered his weapon, while all around were striking.  Then, amid that terrible discord, their two left hands were pressed together for an instant, and a low “God bless you!” came from the lips of both.

“To the right, Beverly, keep you to the right!” said Harold, and he himself, straight through the hostile ranks, sprang in an opposite direction.